Includes bibliographical references and index.

The argument (and its limits) in brief -- Atlantic empires and Carib bean ecology -- Deadly fevers, deadly doctors -- Fevers take hold: from Recife to Kourou -- Yellow fever rampant and British ambition repulsed , 1690-1780 -- Lord Cornwallis vs. Anopheles quadrimaculattus, 1780-178 1 -- Revolutionary fevers, 1790-1898: Haiti, New Granada, and Cuba -- C onclusion: vector and virus vanquished, 1880-1914.

"This book explores the links among ecology, disease, and internatio nal politics in the context of the Greater Caribbean - the landscapes l ying between Suriname and the Chesapeake - in the seventeenth through e arly twentieth centuries. Ecological changes made these landscapes espe cially suitable for the vector mosquitoes of yellow fever and malaria, and these diseases wrought systematic havoc among armies and would-be s ettlers. Because yellow fever confers immunity on survivors of the dise ase, and because malaria confers resistance, these diseases played part isan roles in the struggles for empire and revolution, attacking some p opulations more severely than others. In particular, yellow fever and m alaria attacked newcomers to the region, which helped keep the Spanish Empire Spanish in the face of predatory rivals in the seventeenth and e arly eighteenth centuries. In the late eighteenth and through the ninet eenth century, these diseases helped revolutions to succeed by decimati ng forces sent out from Europe to prevent them"--Provided by publisher.

Electronic text and image data. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan, Michigan Publishing, 2013. Includes both TIFF files and keyword searchable text. ([ACLS Humanities E-Book]) Mode of a ccess: Intranet.